hamilton and sebastian vettel have both won there before. who is it going to be this time? warrington are through to the quarterfinals of rugby league's challenge cup after a hard—fought 34—20 victory over local rivals widnes. a hat trick from kevin brown against his former club kept warrington ahead for much of the game before late trys, including this one from chris hill, made the game safe in the closing minutes. elsewhere in the challenge cup, there were no surprises as leeds rhinos thrashed championship side barrow 72—10 and swinton lions were beaten a242 by wigan warriors. and in the last half hour, the draw for the quarter finals has been made. the pick of the ties sees warrington host wigan. featherstone, who will be playing in their first quarter final for 20 years, have been rewarded with a tie away at leeds. salford host wakefield, while holders hull take on castleford. hopes of a first british winner of the giro d'italia are effectively over after a crash on today's ninth stage. team sky's geraint thomas and orica—scott's adam yates were caught up in a collision with a stationary police motorbike on the roadside nine

miles from the finish. they were second and third overall at the start of the day, but they now trail the stage winner and new overall leader, colombia's nairo quitana, by five minutes. the race finishes in milan in a fortnight. olympic showjumping champion nick skelton says he's proud of what he's achieved in showjumping after formally bowing out from the sport at the royal windsor horse show. skelton appeared with olympic gold medal winning partner big star at a public ceremony in the show‘s castle arena, in the presence of her majesty the queen. the 59—year—old has won a host of medals, including two olympic golds, a world championship silver, and three european golds. i have had some wonderful horses. and without the great owners, that i have had, and the sponsors and the staff, everybody has really contributed towards my career. even the lads but i compete against,

they've kept me on my toes through my life and i'm very grateful to them. i'm very proud of what i've done. that's all from sportsday. i'll be back with more sport through the evening here on the bbc news channel. from celebrated novelist to poet. michel faber‘s success has come with some long books, like the crimson petal and the white, and, more recently, the book of strange new things, which is science fiction. but after the death of his wife, eva, he decided to write a book of poems — undying: a love story — that follows the stages of her illness and describes the raw day by day process of his own grief afterwards. welcome. as a novelist, was it difficult to commit yourself,

especially under these very painful circumstances, to a poetic form? i didn't feel i was committing myself to anything. in the aftermath of eva's death, these poems came to me. i had no conception that i was going to put them out there. they were just suggesting themselves to be written. it seemed perverse not to write them, given that they were coming to me. i didn't feel that i would put them out there. but when i started reading them out at literary festivals, i noticed that they were connecting with people. and i thought, well, maybe this is something that is not essentially private. maybe this can be shared. reading these very direct, frank, in some cases brutal, poems was in a strange sort of way giving people consolation. because i was talking about things which are almost

forbidden to talk about. even though there's a lot of grieving poetry out there, it tends to be quite decorous and, and beautiful. yes. and you wanted some of this to be raw. i wanted it to be raw and, in fact, i stopped writing... i could have gone on writing the poems until now. but i stopped writing them at the end of 2015, because i felt i'd the stage in my grieving where there was a risk i would just write a beautiful poem that happen to have grief as its subject, rather than feeling grief and needing to express it in some way. they were private expressions of your own feelings, some kind of reassurance, some kind of record, i suppose, of the journey you'd been through. with all its pain and difficulties. and joys as well, along the way. but you'd always thought of them are something personal to you? well, i have a long record of writing things and not

putting them out there. i wrote for 25 years without submitting anything. so, yes, if i had thought that they were just me talking to myself about what i had gone through, i wouldn't have shared them. there is anger in there, there is unbearable sadness. and there are those moments after your wife's death that everyone will recognise at that sort of time. things, for example, like the death of a cat. which takes you back in a weird way to your human loss. and it's the kind of thing people think about but don't often say, let alone write down. yeah. the poem that was particularly significant level is... there is a poem called you were ugly. which talks about what happened to her body as a result of the cancer.

and that's a taboo, you're really not allowed in our... to talk about the physical changes. yes, yes. towards the end of her life. and when i read that poem out on the radio about a year ago, someone phoned in the radio station and said, look, i'm not ready to read this book yet. i lost my wife too recently. but i am consoled that someone has expressed this thing which i've been thinking and felt that i wasn't allowed to think. will this take you into poetry as a medium? no. beyond this volume? no, this will be the only book of poetry that i write. i'm under no illusions that i'm a good enough poet to write poems about anything other than the lost... this one experience. does that mean that you will return to fiction? because it has been quite a journey. as you say, you had a long period where you didn't submit anything for publication.

you know, you're sort of famously almost reclusive as a writer in that sense, for a long time. will this have that same effect in you or not? well, when eva was ill, and she knew she was going to die, she was very, very upset with my decision, which i had already made, that i would write no more novels. her attitude was never say never. but i would be astonished if i wrote another novel for grown—ups. i do want to write a novel for children. it's something i haven't done before. with each book i wanted to do something that i have not done before. i also think that in the world as it currently is, a little magic doesn't go amiss. a little benign adventure. there are writers, thinking earlier about thomas hardy,

who lived to the late 20s, but wrote his last novel in the mid—1890s, and spent the rest of his life writing poetry. no, you say you're not going to do another novel, another volume of poetry, but it does seem as if the moment you've reached in yourfiction writing and with this break, because of the circumstances you find yourself in, it is time for something completely new. yes. and something i also want to do is figure out whether i can have a life beyond being a writer. because... do you not know? i'm so used to inhabiting that little sanctum sanctorum and creating works of art, which is an alternative to hanging out with real human beings and smelling the roses and all those things that ordinary people know how to do. when you're not writing, when you're not sitting in that quiet room, what are you doing?

are you reading fiction at all? i don't read fiction at all. i will occasionally read a book about music. mainly, i listen to music. instrumental music mainly. so my space has no language in it. it's an extraordinary thing to hear, in a writer of your celebrity and accomplishment, saying he no longer reads fiction. do you ever feel guilty about that or is thatjust the way it is? it makes, in some ways it makes things a lot easier because it means when i meet another writer and i haven't met their work, haven't read their work, it's not that i'm choosing against... you can say i haven't read anybody else‘s either. i haven't read anybody else‘s either. so that's a sort of socially convenient. but maybe in the future i would like to become the sort of person who reads again. so whether you're writing poetry in the sadness after your wife's death, or whether you are contemplating a move to fiction for young people, or listening to music,

you're always, finally, looking for a new horizon. somewhere. yes, but maybe the ultimate new horizon is to become more like other people. because that has been my mission in a way. all my life. because i started off very, very alienated, very strange. and i didn't want to become an alienated fringe dweller. it's frightening in a way for me to become more connected, because as you become more connected with other people, you're vulnerable to their lives. going bad. and if you're a solitary fringe dweller, you're protected from that. whereas once you welcome these people in, life is harsh. but it's a risk you feel you now have to take.

i feel it's a risk i now have to take. well, not have to take, but want to take. michel faber, author of undying: a love story, thank you very much. thank you. most of us managed to catch some sunshine today. not bad, some showers but on the whole way pretty good day. the different story on monday, clouds rolling off the atlantic. this work the system work will spoil the weather for most of us will spoil the weather for most of us tomorrow. clear whether across the uk right now. so, the evening is looking clear across most of the uk but by the time we get to midnight, we will see rain bearing cloud approaching our shores. this is how it looks in the coming hours. the skies across the extreme east of the country and early hours of monday morning it begins to turn wet in

south—western england and wales, just around the irish sea, northern ireland and south—west scotland. across the hills, the rain is heavy, especially in the south—west, western isles, a wet morning here. rain through northern ireland as well. wet in the lake district and into a north—western parts of england and wales. plenty of rain in the south west and central and southern england as well. at eight o'clock in the morning, it is not quite raining in kent and east anglia. and up into lincolnshire and parts of yorkshire. eventually in the second part of the morning and afternoon, the uk is in in cloud and it will be quite a tampon. rain will not be falling all day long in one location, some areas may have a little sunshine from time to time. this is a look at tuesday. low pressure a cross this is a look at tuesday. low pressure across the atlantic, sending weather fronts in our direction. this weather front

crosses the uk and ahead of this one, the clouds break up with wind coming out of the cell. it could potentially be very warm, and we are expecting temperatures of 22 and even 2a degrees. not the case in most of the uk where we are mostly thinking about 17—18d, pleasant enough. on wednesday it doesn't look like it will stay warm in the south—east as we have cloud, rain, uncertain how much rain there will be in the south—east but it will be a relatively unsettled spell at the beginning of thursday and in towards friday we have a cooler condition coming in from the atlantic as well. it will be a wet end to the week. thursday and friday is relatively cool with showers on the way. goodbye. this is bbc news. the headlines at eight. seven nhs trusts are still having problems following the cyber—attack. the head of europol says the attack

was on an unprecedented scale and could still claim more victims. the slow down of the infection rate over friday night after a temporary fix around it has now been overcome by a second variation of it the criminals have released so the numbers are going up. nurses vote overwhelmingly in favour of a "summer of protest" over pay. emmanuel macron says france is on the verge of a ‘great renaissance' as he becomes the country's youngest president. chancellor merkel‘s christian democrats unseat rival social democrats in germany's most populous state. also in the next hour...meet the world's oldest skydiver. d—day veteran verdun hayes took to the skies with ten members